Winter"s White Embrace

Winter’s White Embrace

pine boughs bent
with heavy snow

Winter’s white embrace

swirls of smoke
from a chimney flowed

Winter’s white embrace

two sat close
in the fire’s glow

Winter’s white embrace

the mountaintops
and all below

in Winter’s white embrace

Chicken Scratch

It has been too long since I last posted. My last visit to the farm entailed a thorough cleaning of the chicken coop. A dirty chicken coop just may be the filthiest thing on the planet. Had a good time. Wish you were there.

A Moment

Back to the farm this morning after a couple Sundays off due to a wedding and an illness. I had a moment today. One of those wonderful moments. I watched my eldest daughter (19) and youngest daughter (8) laughing and having fun together. Life is only a bunch of moments strung together. This was a good one to add to my string.

Picnic

The annual volunteer picnic... love those pork chops! "Pork chops and apple sauce!" (Say in Bobby Brady voice.) The speeches... the love... getting to walk around the farm in non-period clothing. Getting to see all the other crazy people who volunteer -- feeling good that you aren't the only crazy person who volunteers. A good time was had by all.

Historically Accurate Rodeo Clown etc.

On my last visit I chose to dress as an 1890's rodeo clown. I donned 42 x 30 pants in order to really let the suspenders do their job (I typically wear 38 x 30). I sported a vibrantly colored checkered shirt. And, I topped it all off with an extremely Amish looking, wide-brimmed, straw hat. I greeted everyone with a "Hello, English" in proper Amish form. I was happy to provide the comic relief for the day. (I must admit that I enjoyed the freedom and roominess of pants several sizes too big -- I could get used to it.) I'm craving a straw hat I can call my own for everyday summer use.

More Sheep Shed Cleaning

I've been remiss in my volunteer duties of late -- over scheduling my weekends, my life. However, I'm back on track and managed to get back to the farm today after being gone for about a month. And, lo and behold, found myself in the sheep shed once again.

If after you die you wake up in a hot, humid, rustic, sheep shed with a long handled ice-scraper in your hands, I have pretty good idea of where you ended up. Rhymes with smell.

(I must note that the lemonade was exceptional today. Not too sour. Not too sweet. Just how I like it.)

Tegan was enamored of a barn swallow. Such a pretty little bird.

Ag Volunteer Initiation

Began cleaning the sheep shed. Muscle-straining pitchforks full of eye-tearing, throat-burning, sinus-cleansing, hard-packed, ammonia-stench, sheep dirt. Nothing else quite compares. Once you break the seal with the first puncturing scoop of the fork tines, a Pandora's box of stink escapes. This is the true initiation of the Ag volunteer. I welcome all comers to a morning of sheep shed cleaning. And, you get to find the occasional trophy of shed lamb tails -- sort of like the prize in a box of Cracker- Jacks.

Farm Fu

I'm developing a new martial art called Farm Fu. The first animal based style will be "Chicken" style. You hold one hand in front of your face like a beak -- this is the striking hand. The other hand you hold behind you with fingers outstreched -- like a tail -- to distract your opponent. You crouch slightly and move about in a "chicken-in-the-straw" kind of shuffling candence. You make the high pitched chicken "coo" in your throat (Bruce Lee-ish), then squawk loudly as you strike with your "beak" hand.

It was Sheep Shearing Day at the farm last Sunday. Blustery weather. Visitors actually showed up! We sheared a few. Mark put on his energetic, humorous, and educational demonstration. A visitor, Jimmy, a music teacher from Indiana, volunteered to turn the crank on the historically accurate man-powered shearing machine.

Tegan, Faith and I watched the sheep dog show for a few minutes after stopping at the visitor's center to buy hand-spun yarn made for KCF sheep's wool on the way out after our shift. The day's chores had also included mixing feed, filling the horse barn and sheep shed with hay, picking-out a few livestock pens, and spreading some fresh straw. (A chicken almost landed on Tegan's head when we fed them.)

New Calf

A new calf was born the other day. Mixed breed -- angus / short horn. Mostly black with a brown sheen in places. White spot between the back legs. 100 lbs. Put short horn cow and new calf in with the angus cow and calf. The mixed breeding means the a.i. didn't take. The "clean-up" angus bull was successful.

Saw turkey buzzards circling up high in the sky.

Stress Relief

There's nothing like real physical labor to get rid of all your work week stress. Harnessing horses with heavy gear. Tossing hay bales around: toss them from the lost, carry them down the barn ramp, load them on the wagon, toss them off the wagon, carry them to the shed, stack them in the shed. There's nothing like a good tired from real physical labor with a purpose. I can't make myself walk a tread mill (isn't that what the work week is?). I can't make myself jog. But, the sheep, cows and horses gotta eat, so there'so backing out of it. Who needs an expensive gym with a trainer when I have the farm!

Dragons

A week ago Sunday we were at the farm. (We volunteer every other Sunday morning. Used to be every Sunday morning, but then we adopted Boo, our 70 pound Aussie / Collie mix with I think a pinch of Lab thrown in, 3 years ago -- who is basically another child, hyperactive & neurotic -- and, so, it is too much for my wife to care for Boo and our four-year-old son, Wyatt, without someone ending up in the hospital, namely, my wife, under sedation... "Mommy needs to rest.") So, we were at the farm a week ago Sunday. It was mostly pleasant weatherwise, if I remember correctly. Did the usual chores. Tegan bottle-fed a lamb -- which, of course, left her grinning from ear to ear and is better than Disney World. We tossed and hauled hay. I'm always amazed at how Faith, my 14 y.o., can carry the awkward-t0-carry 40 pound bales. Then, Tegan jumped in with a little visitor friend to wrestle some bales onto the sleigh. We also mixed some feed -- Tegan doing the scooping and weighing -- me doing the supervision and any heavy lifting -- while Faith was off grooming the horses. At one point in the horse barn, Tegan asked to pet Annie -- I escorted her into the stall, and she bravely reached up to pet Annie's side. I say "bravely"because Annie is an almost 2000 pound animal with sharp talons and breathes fire (in my eyes), and Tegan could almost walk under her without bending over. Girls and horses! I still keep a healthy terror under my belt when dealing with the work dragons. Somehwere in there we took a break, and I enjoyed some of Wayne's wonderful 1890's style coffee and some 1890's style popcorn. A good time was had by all. (We listened to country music on the way home.)

Lamb, Calf Update

(The information below is copied and pasted from an email from the KCF Agriculture Mgr, Mark Johnson to the Ag & Ag Volunteer staff)

We have one more ewe due to lamb. She is due in mid March. It is a ewe that has had some prolapse problems so we will keep our fingers crossed. We have 18 lambs on the ground right now, out of the 11 ewes that have given birth. We are at 163% and the average is about a 150% lamb crop. We have lost a few lambs, mostly due to the high number of triplets and quads. We have had a disproportionate number of those types of births. Please do not allow visitors to bottle feed the lambs. (Remember Timmy?) We have also had a visitor that insists that she and her granddaughter be allowed into the sheep pens to play with and chase the lambs. She indicated that they had been allowed to do that on a previous weekend this year. It is true that we have encouraged staff and Ag volunteers to TAKE people into the sheep pens to view the new born lambs that were in the lambing pens. Visitors are only allowed into the livestock pens under the supervision of staff or Ag volunteers. The only time that is done presently is to allow visitors to get up close to new born lambs that are in the lambing pens. We don’t have any ewes in lambing pens at the moment. At no time are visitors allowed to chase or harass the farm animals.
Forever Lady, KCF’s Angus cow delivered an 87 lb bull calf on the afternoon of March 3. Both appear to be doing fine. That is a little earlier than expected, but that has been the pattern for that cow. This Angus cow is not as aggressive as Ida, the older Angus cow.

As slippery as...

It was slippery at the farm last Sunday morning. The farm was an ice rink -- a slick sheet of rain over the ice added to the hazardous conditions. So, of course, I chose that ideal day to introduce my 8 y.o. daughter Tegan to volunteering. Faith (my 14 y.o.) and I are used to this sort of thing, so I hoped the weather conditions wouldn't curb Tegan's enthusiasm... It didn't. She loved seeing the newborn lambs -- helped me spread straw in the pens -- after I bobsledded (a real word?) down the barn ramp holding onto the wheelbarrow piled with two bales of straw. We also shelled three big tubs of corn with Dave's help -- after getting all the chores down, of course. We took a break somewhere in there and enjoyed the donuts Mark brought (he was late). At quitting time we changed out of our soaked-through clothes and walked back up the slippery lane to join the 21st century once again. I mailed Tegan's official volunteer paperwork today. Welcome to Kline Creek Farm, Tegan!

Elastorator Joy

Faith and I were at the farm again last Sunday. She drove the team for the first time. Did ok. Lambs born. Faith bottle fed one. Mark put the elastorater on lamb tails. Can't wait to find the severed tails on the ground -- one of the seasonal joys. This is the time of hitching and hauling: feed, straw, hay. This is the time of mixing feed and grinding corn. The new cattle shed is progressing nicely. Can't wait to got out there again.

Really Really Cold

The temperature read "-4" on the junior high's automated sign as Faith and I headed to the farm at 7:45 a.m. for our Sunday morning volunteer shift. It was really really cold. We listened to country music on the radio, as we do every time we go to the farm, to get in the proper frame-of-mind. The walk down the tree-lined, gravel path from the parking lot to the farmhouse is a like walking through a "breach in the time-space continuum" back to the 1890's for me --away from the mad rush of the 21st century to a simpler, slower-paced time and place. We anachronistacly logged in for our shift on the volunteer computer and donned our costumes for the morning chores. We worked with Mark and Kelly. Faith and I fed and stabled the horses, fed the cows near the barn and chickens while Mark and Kelly fed the rams, sheep and cows to the north. Faith and I had to take one break in the lower barn warming room to get the feeling back in our fingers before feeding the chickens. Then, Mark and I harnessed Annie & Jack to pull the sleigh in order to distribute hay and straw to the sheep and cattle shed while Kelly and Faith ground some corn. After finishing with the horses, we ended the morning chores with chopping some wood for the kitchen's wood stove -- Wayne was running low on his supply. Before calling it quits for the day, Faith and I strolled out to the sheep shed to take a look at the two lambs that were born last week. They were nursing vigorously. Two cute healthy little lambs. Always wonderfully amazing to me -- that we had a hand in that. Faith and I always look forward to seeing the new lambs bouncing in and out of the shed. Yes, lambs do bounce.